A blog in reviewal of all those good times had as a child in front of a glowing screen. Whether it be an old Mac, an old PC, Nintendo, or Sega...all brands, genres and skill-levels will be covered in detail. Were you a fan of NBA Jam? How about The Secret of Monkey Island? Or were you more of a Power Pete kind-of-guy?
No matter what your platform, this blog is for you.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

A Bit of Mail: Loot Crate

HOW MANY BITS, MERCER? 8/8 BITS

While I know that this blog is meant to about video games, I figure every once in a while a something-nerdy-by-proxy is allowed to pop up. We're all nerds here, right? Equal opportunity nerdy-thing-lovers? Even if you aren't, this is my blog and what I say goes. So hmph.

Loot Crate, for those of you that haven't heard about it, is one of those subscription box services like Birch Box or Bark Box. But it's for nerds. Their site labels them as "Epic Geek & Gamer Gear Delivered Monthly!" which is basically exactly what they are. As someone who has never been a fan of "pay and we'll deliver it by mail" things, I was pleasantly surprised.

There has only been one box that I didn't like out of the about 8 months that I have been subscribing to them, and the prices are actually decently inexpensive for what you get sent. They go down based on the number of months that you subscribe for, but at maximum they are $13 a month. Even better is that each month follows a theme so you at least have some kind of idea about what you're getting. In my experience, they'll send you an email letting you know the theme for the month, and if you follow their Instagram you can usually get a pretty good feel for what is actually coming your way. Although I've never been a fan of "ruining the surprise," as it were, Lootcrate has both surprised and delighted basically every time.

I know, if you are anything like me you probably have too many chachkies and teeshirts as is, but honestly it's nice to have something curated and sent to you each month like a little surprise gift that you didn't know you were going to get. An added benefit is that these are obviously collected with a certain demographic in mind, so the kind of things that nerdy, geeky 13 year olds would like are not included, and the types of things nerdy, geeky 20-somethings like are.

This month's and last month's were particularly good in the grand scheme of things, so I figured I would share those with you despite the fact that they have a decidedly un-gamey tone (much different from the almost entirely Aperture Labs themed crate from the month before).

October 2013's Crate, Theme: SURVIVE

& September's Theme: ANIMATE.

As you can see, both of these were awesome, and totally worth the $11 bucks that I spent on them each month. I'd pretty solidly recommend it to anybody because even if you get a crate that you aren't totally in love with, there's a pretty solid chance that you will at least get something that you like. Here's a link to sign up if you're interested. One of us, one of us.